hand shot out, warm and small as my own. “It will get easier,” a quiet voice whispered. I turned to see Ianthe, pale as new snow, beside me. She was solid and real, and I clung to her, wrapped my hand around hers and held on. “It will get easier,” she said again, wise beyond her years.
It was the beginning. The first connection between us. The first tentative threads of that which would bind us.
Back in Union City, there had been all sorts of copper-piece stories about the Wild West, and they’d enchanted Arlen. He’d filled himself up with the tales he’d bought without his father knowing, about shine slingers and wide-open spaces. About a landscape that pitted man against nature. That is, perhaps, what he’d naively anticipated when coming out to Shine Territory. He’d wanted to find himself in one of those stories.
Instead, what amazed him wasn’t how untamed the West was, but how normal everything appeared to be. The streets were wide and cobbled. Women wore the same dresses women wore back east, compete with flirty hats or bonnets. Mothers walked with children in tow. Fathers tipped hats and made way for the gentler sex. Business went on.
There was a large bank down the street from their rooms, and a tavern nearby, a haberdashery across the street, and a tailor’s shop next to it. Down the way, he could see a barbershop, a healer’s clinic, and everything else he could imagine. In the distance, here and there, steeples from Fate churches adorned the skyline, their bells filling the air with their crystalline music a few times each day. The Boundary might as well not have existed.
Freetown smelled like horse shit, just like Union City.
“We’re here,” Elroy said, slapping him on the shoulder.
They stood before a small, brick building squashed between two stores. The door was painted a brilliant green, with gold lettering saying Shine Company Transfer office. Arlen stared at the door. Something in his gut churned. He hated these places. Hated them with an intensity that always surprised him.
Elroy pushed the door open. The cramped room was blessedly empty save for the official, who was slumped over his messy, paper-strewn desk, drool dripping down the side of his face, eyes unfocused. His skin had the waxen, pale tone of someone who was both sick and never out in natural light.
Elroy snapped his fingers in front of the man’s face a few times, gaining no response. “This one is almost burned out,” he muttered. “I’ll let Matthew know it’s time to send a new one to take his place.” More snapping. “HELLO!”
That roar finally stirred the man. Arlen watched as he unfolded himself, rubbed his eyes, and then stared blankly at the wall before reaching for another dram of crude shine and drinking it down in one swallow.
And that, right there, was why he hated transfer offices. The naked addiction, the obvious burnout. The men who worked there were doggedly loyal to the company, but they had no families, no outside lives or obligations. They spent their days and nights in this tiny, lightless room, dealing in secrets and drinking shine to keep themselves as high as possible, for as long as possible, in order to touch minds and relay messages with other officials in far-flung offices. When burnout came, it came hard and fast. Most didn’t survive to see a day past forty.
“I’m ready,” the man finally slurred, the words mashing together into near incomprehensibility. Incredible, that he’d trust this creature with a missive to his father.
“Go ahead,” Arlen motioned for Elroy to go first. The man shrugged and took a seat opposite the desk, waiting impatiently, foot tapping, while the official made himself comfortable in his chair, his eyes sliding closed. To all the world, he looked like he’d fallen asleep again. That line of drool moved down his chin, dripping onto his shirt. The room smelled fetid, like body odor and time.
The windows were blacked out to provide privacy and protect secrecy. On the official’s hip, was a pistol, loaded with shooting shine. If anyone tried to break into this office, he was to shoot on sight, no questions asked. His job was not just to relay messages, but to protect the secrets of the company with his life, and all officials took that job seriously. Though how, in truth, he’d be able to use a gun when he was that high was beyond Arlen.
Arlen listened with half an ear while Elroy rattled off the